


The Fate of Commander Sazabi

by BetterBeMeta



Series: By Sparing Sazabi [1]
Category: SD Gundam Force
Genre: Brainwashing, Character Development, Gen, Heel/Face fic, SD Gundam Force 13th Anniversary, Sazabi gets grounded, Sparing the villain, lets face the facts that Shute's mom raised Shute, parenting, series au, themes of inherent worth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-08-12 09:22:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 18,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7929382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BetterBeMeta/pseuds/BetterBeMeta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an alternate universe, Captain Gundam spares Commander Sazabi at a critical moment. Neotopia does not believe in prisons, executions, or solitary confinement, and fails to change the dimensional conqueror's ways with Robo House therapy. Refusing to integrate into their peaceful community, the violent Commander Sazabi is safety-bolted and placed in the care of the only volunteer brave enough to deal with him: Shute's mother, Keiko.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Fate of Commander Sazabi

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a long-time coming. The first portion of it was actually finished two years ago, while I was in college. I would write it in my notebooks in between classes. However, the end of college was a very hard time for me and I sort of fell off everything I had been doing up until that point. 
> 
> But I am better now, I'm still a fan of SD Gundam Force, and I like to think that I merely sent this story into the future, into a better time for it to be completed.

Say what you would about Commander Sazabi, he never went out of his way for the sake of discipline. It wasn’t his fault if it was so damn difficult to motivate the troops. Rewards and promotions had been banned since… forever (and how had he earned his rank was unclear), which left only a good dose of old-fashioned system stress to make the troops pick up their heels.  
  
He’d be a liar if he said he didn’t enjoy it, but those funnels were calibrated precisely. Torture? Yes. Brutal? Yes. But not for more than a few seconds. That was as long as most beings could stand against him anyway. Circuit overload or obliteration, there was no sense dragging it out.

Sazabi couldn’t say much for Neotopia’s sense of justice.

“I told you! You’re not going to force behavioral overwrite, so you may as well give up! I can do this all day.”  
  
Sazabi punctuated his point with a healthy punt of the third flower they’d tried to force on him. The projected image of that disgusting, fleshy leader— her face contorted. A frown? Almost made his injectors backfire. The only thing worse than humans was sad humans.

With their leaking saline.

And their mucus.

Ugh.  
  
“Oh, but Mr. Sazabi, we don’t believe in a death penalty, or lifetime isolation. All beings should have the opportunity to participate in society. If there’s no way you can peacefully integrate into our community, things will be a little difficult!”

“Look. You should have let your Gundam destroy me when it had the chance! Then none of us would be wasting our time. I don’t want anything to do with your ‘peaceful’ community!”  
  
Sazabi couldn’t shake a sense of wrongness, as if things ought to have gone differently. As if he’d ought to have been destroyed and he was trespassing past his termination date. He didn’t know if it was the humiliation of falling prisoner to worthless organic life forms, or any of the weird-scrap-he-didn’t-understand that came with the wretched soul drive installed in his core, but he’d been shocked when the Gundam had reached out and removed that Drive rather than smashing it.   
  
That wasn’t exactly the outcome that Sazabi had been aiming for when appealing to the sense of commonality between them. He’d hoped to stall that Gundam long enough to make a comeback with what he had left. No functional arms… a headbutt maybe. Reinforcements? Things hadn’t gone according to plan. 

Sazabi shut off his optic. That hideous no-guns memo was flashing again. He didn’t see how it was necessary. They’d tampered his hardware while he’d been offline and there wasn’t a gun or weaponized feature left on him. At least he’d had his missing bodywork replaced in the right color. If nothing else, they had the decency to grant him his modesty. Even if he still felt half-naked without his arsenal.  
  
“In that case, I apologize, but we will have to arrange an alternative option for your incarceration,” said the voice of the SDG’s loathsome leader. “It was our goal to promise that after a period of therapy, you would be afforded the full rights and freedoms of any Neotopian citizen, but unfortunately you do not accept this as an option.”

“So what’s it going to be, monkeys? Prison? Forced labor? Public humiliation? Bring it on. I can take anything you throw at me.”  
  
Compared to what he could have been facing, this kind of mental punishment was nothing.  
  
“I repeat. We are sorry for what hardship you may endure. Please, we would appreciate your cooperation…”  
  
The Robo House room’s built-in jammer kicked in and Sazabi, mightiest of invasion forces and galactic conqueror, crashed like an outdated calculating suite.


	2. Grounded

Birds. The first sensor input was auditory, and it was the sound of birds. Flying vermin. Their presence indicated either morning or evening in an insufficiently acquired world, still bearing biosphere. Sazabi looked up and almost put his helmet through the wall behind him. High ceiling, but not high enough: barely any clearance. A quick sweep of the room yielded a guest bed, a plain monitor screen, a ventilation fan, and some completely uncalled-for pile carpeting. There was only one exit, aside from the wide, rectangular window.

Dusk. Just great. He couldn't see out past indoor glare, and any surveillance  could see in. A closer scan further revealed security glass with no means of opening to the outside and a layer of electrified filament between the double insulation layer. If broken, doubtless some alarm would sound.

Sazabi looked at the door. Flimsy, without a lock. Not built for security, to say the least. In desperation, he ran through his inventory. Opening the firing ports for his mega particle cannons revealed only empty, G-controlled steerage. They hadn’t given him back his boosters or anything mounted with them, so his long-range scatter beams were out of the question. The functions for remotely controlling nearby funnels were still active, but there was no response from any compatible hardware. It was a longshot, but with luck…

All that popped out of the storage for wrist-mounted beamsabers were a feather duster and a small water spritzer.

“Are you kidding me?!”

An unfortunate cat yowled outside, and with an undramatic thud, fell off a nearby rooftop and scrambled across the back deck below.

Hours enduring brutal Neotopian readjustment torture had at the very least hammered into Sazabi’s memory that there were no weapons to be found. But the foolish dimension hardly realized that anything could be a weapon. And that with his prodigious size and strength, breaking out of such a pathetic prison would surely be a trifle.

Prison? Was it even a prison?

Awkwardly turning the too-small knob, Sazabi ducked under the doorframe and squeezed down the hall, throwing open every room he came across. He expected some sort of resistance. But with each barren closet or sleeping area, angry exceptions built up in his processing. Condescending to him? Mocking? What was this new insult?

At last he came to the stairs, each step somewhat too short for him. Sazabi descended with awkward ire and found the jail warden in a part of the common area partitioned off by a half-wall or countertop. It's back was turned. It was minding a stove. There was an organic smell similar to roasting flesh, though it took him longer than he liked to realize it was ‘cooking’ some plant and animal remains in typical barbaric fashion.

Not that Sazabi cared about it's inconsequential and revolting habits. What mattered was that all they’d left between him and freedom was a simple waste of carbon. Even if it was insulting, he’d take what he could get. All he had to do was lunge out, and separate the neck from the rest of the pulpous body…

An intrusive function that was not his— what did they do to him, _what did they do to him_ —locked Sazabi’s limbs up like an instant mime, leaving him off balance so precariously he almost fell down face-first.

Whang!

Sazabi almost thought he had fallen over. His optic rattled around, knocked out of focus. No damage. A pathetic blow, but there the pesky being was. All scant 75 kilograms of it, two of which were sure to be the iron skillet hefted in two hands.

“You?! Harm me, with that?” Sazabi’s disbelief cracked his vocal audio in scorn. “Don’t make me laugh!”

“You don’t have to laugh, I only wanted your attention. I apologize,” said the human. “I didn’t think you’d understand 'stop,’ To be honest, I’m not a very violent person.”

“Ha! If not for your irritating override command, you’d be dead before y—”

Whang!

His optic bounced around like a nail in a can. “Argh! Stop doing that!”

“You threatened my son and you hurt his friends. You and your army put everyone in terrible danger,” said the human calmly, with a stern undertow pulling at their tone. “I won’t hit you again, but you really did deserve that.”

“Oh, cry me a reservoir,” snarled the huge mech, now getting control of his visual feed. “What have you done to me? Where am I? I demand you tell me! Immediately!”

The human turned back to their oven. For articulated jelly, they had a sort of conviction about them, as if he was in serious trouble and ought to be ashamed of himself. Sazabi, of course wouldn’t lower himself to their judgement. But he unmistakably was on the bad end of some humiliating social trap. It was unsettling. 

“I am standing right here,” they said evenly. “You don’t have to shout. Please, use an indoor voice around the house.”

“Who do you think you are? How dare you treat me this way?”

“You can stay there until you’re through with your tantrum. We talk nicely and politely in this house. I’m willing to wait.”

The look they gave him was strangely withering. He was not one to be cowed, but apparently human parents bore socially-wielded, eye-contact-based invisible lasers and no one had alerted him to this fact before. This was an incredible intelligence failure. If he ever made it out of this in one piece he swore to eliminate all the organics with young at high priority. If the bagu-bagu didn’t get them first. Seething, Sazabi grit immobile joints. “Fine. I’ll entertain your terms, insect. Answer my questions.”

“Please. We use please and thank-you.”

This was an extended dominance ritual over him, Sazabi realized. Infuriating. But he had no choice.

“Please answer the questions, you damn meatbag.”

“Close enough,” they said, shrugging in exasperation. “I’m Keiko. You can call me Ms. Ray, or Ma'am. I’m going to be your sponsor. You’re under indefinite house arrest, and with the help of the SDG, I volunteered to host your time here in Neotopia. And you are?”

“You already know who I am. What’s your point in demanding my name?”

Keiko, or Ms. Ray (and, presumably ‘she’), put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot. She still had to look up at him, but for some bizarre reason Sazabi felt physically shorter than her. “Your social skills could use some work. Why don’t you practice?”

Flatly, against that yank of the shackles, “I am Commander Sazabi of the Dark Axis, supreme commanding officer of the Axis’ primary invasion fleet. Does that satisfy you?”

“Well, that’s not your job anymore, but thank-you for introducing yourself,” said the human. “As for what was done for you, well, I don’t know the technical explanation. I wish it wasn’t needed, but you’ve been fitted with some kind of safety lock. You have one of those soul drive things, don’t you? They told me it gives off some kind of frequency when you mean trouble. The gadget installed in your chest will lock you down and leave you there until I come to unlock you. Only I know the key, so please do your best to control yourself around me.”

Sazabi stopped struggling against his frozen kinematics. “I’ll remove it myself. I won’t let you control me!”

“To do that, you would have to take that snowglobe out of your chest. And we both know you can’t do that,” she replied curtly, tapping his armor with the butt of her spoon. “Or at least not without hurting yourself, and I’m not about to help you. You said yourself that you don’t need any friends. You won’t find many now, after what you’ve done. Not for a long time, anyway.”

And then, he remembered fully where he’d heard the woman’s voice before.

“You! You were there! And airlifted away. Why do you take this duty? After seeing my moment of failure? To mock me?”

A horrible wail emitted from the other room. Sazabi glanced upward, curious as to which alarm had gone off, but couldn’t move his head and only saw the underside of his helmet. Ms. Ray turned the pan down low and left Sazabi in the kitchen for a moment to return with… a…. 

“Red!” garbled the recently-shrieking baby. “Gah… ah! Mom!”

“You woke Nana,” sighed the human. “This is why we use indoor voices.”

Sazabi’s hardware lurched in its fittings. “It’s repulsive,” he sneered.

“Red!”

“Hush, honey. Sazabi’s red, yes. Ssh.”

“Zabi! Red!… gah!”

“You’re a waste of time.”

Keiko managed to calm the infant down, bouncing her by shoulder. “Well, you aren’t going much of anywhere until I unlock you, Mr. Busy,” she said, “I volunteered to take you on. That’s true, I was there to see you on top of the tower. I saw what you did, and what you are up close. That was why I decided I had to help.”

The senselessness of humans knew no upper bound.

“My son risked his life to defy you, I am not about to sit here and do nothing while he and his friends go off again into danger to stop people like you from hurting other worlds.”

“They don’t know what they’re up against. They may have gotten lucky once, but they have no hope to win.”

On one side, perhaps the General would eat Captain Gundam. On the other, Sazabi would have rather seen the General starve.

Ms. Ray put her child down in an appropriate receptacle and went back to her human nutrition. “I like to keep a more positive outlook, especially concerning my son.”

“And what will you do now? Now that you regrettably are the one who rules, and I am the one who is to be controlled? You objected to such an arrangement before, and now take advantage of it when it suits your convenience.”

She laughed. She had the audacity, the nerve, to laugh at him. 

“Oh, I don’t rule over anybody. Not my family, and not the students in my class. But you are right that in both, I do have some aspect of power. I am not a dictator, but this is my house, so you will have to respect that. And you did give up your freedoms that we offered you, all on your own. I’m just here to make sure you don’t hurt yourself or other people,” she said. “As for what I’m going to do? Well, to start… you’re grounded.”

“I’m… what?”

“You heard me, mister. No TV, internet, or sneaking Shute’s games. No leaving the property for now, so don’t let me catch you trying. You’re a danger to yourself and everybody around you, so until you learn to behave yourself, it’s homework and chores. You can stay in your room if you’re not busy. You can read any book in the house, if you like.”

“What makes you think I’ll listen to your orders?”

Ms. Ray tapped on his immobile carapace with pale, thin knuckles. “Well, you have a tracker installed someplace difficult to find, and the SDG will collect you no matter where you manage to run. And your security bolt is another reason. I’d hate to have to come unlock you if you’re stuck someplace humiliating. But being a mature and responsible person should be more important.”

“Ugh, spare me.”


	3. Brownie Points

The woman meant to give him supper and send him to bed, but Sazabi wanted none of her protein-and-compost slop and parked himself defiantly in the upstairs room he’d been banished to. His fuel cells weren’t about to dwindle for a few weeks at least, even if the extended combat had depleted them. And then why would he refuel himself by burning biomass when alternative sources were available? He didn’t need the bed, he would break the bed. He powered down for the Neotopian night in a corner of the room shielded from the gaze of the far window.

“Breakfast?”

Sazabi stared at the steaming, solidified remains of the unfertilized bird embryos.

“Absolutely not.”

“Well, suit yourself, tin man,” said the tall male, presumably the warden Keiko’s life partner. Sazabi hadn’t been introduced. The human had appeared by mysterious means, possibly after returning by night. It was inconsequential anyway. He didn’t seem to have any role in Sazabi’s detention other than as an occupant of the residence. His female companion took on all household disciplinary and administrative duties. Clearly she was the dominant party and his superior in the relationship. Still, he did not seem to fear failure concerning her, so Sazabi was not sure. Perhaps she wielded some other power over him that he could not understand. 

“Captain’s a much better houseguest,” Ms. Ray commented. “But thanks for trying, Mark. I’ve got it under control here.”

“Are you sure, honey? He is the big bad guy that… y'know…”

The human’s serene expression was mysteriously threatening to Sazabi. “Oh, believe me. I’ve seen a lot of short tempers in my day.”

“Well, be safe. I’m off to the studio. I’ll see you later.”

Ms. Ray planted her pulpous lips on the bare skin of her partner’s cheek. Sazabi’s circuits shuddered with static. After the male left the premises, Keiko took a helping of denatured embryo for herself and her young and turned to Sazabi instructively. “Well, let’s get you busy. It’s better you start early.”

“I’m so glad your policy on slavery is punctual.”

That made her skeptical. “I’m sure that my 'policy on slavery’ is kinder than yours was, so it’s a bit selfish to complain,” she said. “No, but we should spend some time on your work ethic, before I assign you a paper or two.”

Sazabi was too incredulous to comment.

“So where would you like to begin?”

“This is ridiculous. Why would I know what you intend to do to me? Enough with this illusion of preference.”

The human left the room to go eat with her child on the deck. Between being ignored, left behind, and having to endure the woman, Sazabi followed her angrily. She seemed pleased by that: rewarding obedience, and shunning outbursts. How did she not think herself a dictator? 

“Well, with Shute gone to help save the universe, somebody’s got to take over his chores. I’m sorry that you don’t have a choice, but that somebody is you.”

“Not that sorry,” Sazabi grumbled. “Will you just get on with it already?”

Ms. Ray thought for a moment, trying to coax her young child to ingest the nauseating mixture of proteins. “Well, you can start by weeding the garden. That can’t be too difficult for someone like you.”

“Explain. 'Weeding’ means nothing to me.”

“I guess you don’t have gardens,” said Ms. Ray thoughtfully. “Well, do you see the flower bed down in the back there? The only sort of plant that should be there is the kind with the yellow flowers. If you would get rid of all the other plants growing in that place, that would be great.”

Sazabi, once the nausea concerning touching plants with his own hands subsided, was bewildered and intrigued by this idea. “So let me get this straight, human,” he began carefully. “You’re ordering me to destroy undesirable life forms, obliterating the native biosphere of this contained area. For nothing more than your own sense of aesthetic.”

“Yes, I suppose you could put it that way,” Ms. Ray said offhandedly. “You’re already good at those things, so this job shouldn’t be too difficult for you.

"Forget it. I’m not about to take orders from wetware.”

Ms. Ray shushed a babbling Nana and met her ward’s refusal only with a sly look. “But, Mr. Sazabi... don’t you think that those weeds down there aren’t a little out of control? They really are just too much. I’m sure you could find a way to punish them for their crimes against order in all sorts of interesting ways. They’re calling out for an expert conqueror like you.”

“Are you saying you don’t _care_ what I do to the rest so long as your worthless yellow flowers are intact?”

“I’ll give you brownie points for creativity, actually.”

Sazabi had no idea what a brownie was. But he was on the ground and stomping dandelions in about three seconds, only too glad to have something to take it all out on. At least Neotopia still condoned a controlled form of violence. Even if only against plants.


	4. Justice

Life proceeded at approximately that pace. The day after weeding, Sazabi attempted to do away with his captors by indirect means— fatal toxins in their evening meal. But he’d locked up almost as soon as he’d found their drain cleaner.  
  
Sazabi even had attempted to escape, once. He’d locked down on a Neotopian highway only a few miles out from the residence. Ms. Ray drove out to find him. There hadn’t been any room in the car. Sazabi had been made to sit on the roof, an immobile statue. He wondered if this was what petrified organics felt like, if they felt at all.  
  
He’d been directed to scrub the outside of the premises as punishment. How and why he began doing this or consenting to their form of justice, Sazabi was not sure. It was infuriating! Neotopians fought with verbal subterfuge and blackmail so intricate they would have stunned his most seasoned infiltrators.  
  
With their self-righteousness and pacifistic habits, any resistance immediately became a onesided disturbance. Argument made him petty or meaningless: an image he couldn't afford to keep. That was exactly the opposite of what control he intended to take back.  
  
Keiko’s function and position seemed to be a 'school teacher.' A sort of trainer and educator for young humans and some newly-activated mobile citizens. Her specific skillset in forcing labor and compliance out of him seemed to stem from that duty. A terrifying premise to be sure! The presumably most fragile in Neotopia not only were subjected to this torture, but expected to thrive in it. Sazabi remembered that young creature that had confronted him, before his defeat. And at the time he had no idea what sort of being he had been dealing with. Now he could have shot his past self for not atomizing the brat on sight.  
  
This sort of attitude was why it was so surprising when Keiko asked him to watch Nana.

“Only for a minute,” she assured him. “I have to take the door.”  
  
The larva babbled where it was strapped into a special chair. It took fistfuls of small ring-shaped cereals and stuffed them into its gooey face.  
  
“Why would you trust me with this?” Sazabi asked, bewildered. “Nothing would please me more than to do away with your drooling spawn.”  
  
“Oh, good grief. If you can’t watch a baby for a minute, you could say so.”

Sazabi’s voice processor rose an indignant few decibels. “Of course I can do it! But I don’t _want_ to stare at your filthy meatling.”

“So then you’re only being lazy.”  
  
“You…! That’s not what I meant! What do you take me for, you vertebra—”  
  
“It’s settled, then. I’ll be right back. Just make sure she eats her Mirai-os.”

And she slipped out the door, but did not close it. In the crack to the front walk, Sazabi could see a shambling crowd, and with the sound-secure door breached he could hear it was an angry mob.

“Red!”

“Be quiet! I’m trying to listen.”  
  
“Red!”  
  
The little vermin planted a grubby paw on his left shoulderplate. It was smearing its caustic oils all over him. Sazabi moved to brush it off until he thought of how the SDG’s surveillance device would perceive the action. He’d been locked up for seemingly unrelated tasks. The last thing Sazabi needed was that security bolt to engage, proving his ill will towards the child. It would result in some pointless punishment.

  
It kept the shrieking stinkball quiet, anyway. So in this rare instance, he endured contact by another being. A living organic being. Despite his revulsion, its touch was oddly warm. Instead of this nonsense, Sazabi listened…  
  
“Please, everyone! Calm down! I promise that the situation is under control here!”

“No amnesty for war criminals!”  
  
“Justice!”  
  
“Don’t let him off the hook!”  
  
“Justice!”  
  
Voices over megaphones. “Civilians! Please disperse peacefully! This is a secure zone and private property. Please assemble in an appropriate zone!”  
  
Riot control, Sazabi realized. So Neotopia too is capable of hatred.

“Give me that, please!” Keiko again. Her next words were over the megaphone, too.“You all ought to be ashamed of yourselves! I meant what I said on Neotopia Tower, that we have no need for a ruler. So I refuse to be a tyrant to Sazabi, too!”

The crowd simmered down to an uncertain warble.

“If we believed in the Dark Axis way of doing things, then we could have chucked Sazabi back into his own dimension! I’m sure the rest of his horrible army could have taken care of it. But you know, I think he’d have expected that! There’s no point in returning Sazabi to what he’s used to. That wouldn’t be a real punishment for him. If you want justice, then show him the meaning of what he tried to destroy!”  
  
Trite, but true. Gerbera might take him apart, and of course he could be fed to the General. But neither was so harrowing a prospect as… this.

Sazabi tried to contemplate the rest of his life stuck here, doing menial labor for _the moisture_. A grim possibility.  
  
“Red! Gah!”  
  
“Silence! You’re beginning to irritate me!”

“The only reason why anyone would want to destroy this mobile citizen is fear!” said Ms. Ray over the megaphone. The crowd hushed before her. It was useful to know how easily humans were cowed before a dominant figure, for all their whining about equality. “We already have won. There’s no reason to fear this robot, because that would give him the power that he tried to hold over all of us. Power that doesn’t belong in Neotopia, among friends. So please, go home, and think about this. Thank you for your patience, everybody! It’s nice to see so many neighbors…”  
  
They shouldn’t have done as she asked. They should have been angry enough not to listen to her. But they somehow weren’t. Sazabi listened to the sounds of a dispersing crowd, of officials and police thanking the woman for her he assistance, and modest brush-offs. When Keiko entered the house again, her hair was disturbed and her face was flushed with blood. (Does tension affect their internal pressure, Sazabi wondered?) She braced on the closed door for a second before picking up and calmly walking back to the kitchen table.  
  
“I see you did a good job over here. I didn't hear a peep,” she said to Sazabi. “I’m back, Nana. Did you miss mom?” That was to the baby, who finally took greasy paws off Sazabi’s armor to throw cereal everywhere.

“Why did those fools listen to you?”

“Excuse me?”  
  
Sazabi brushed out the offending Mirai-os where they’d gotten into his joints. “You have no authority and hold nothing over those who would see you wrong. And yet, they regarded you as their superior and followed your orders. Even when the true authorities in this world could not persuade them to move.”

“Well, I didn’t speak to them as any superior. They were sad and angry people. All I did was remind them that there were other ways of expressing that,” said Keiko. “They could have ignored me, but they knew it was the right thing to do, to listen. They knew that what I said was true.”  
  
“Why would they care?”  
  
“We do that here, in Neotopia. You’ll just have to get used to it,” said Keiko.


	5. Forgotten Things

"I will not do it."

"You will so do it."

"I will not do it."

"You will so do it."

In theory, he should have been able to outlast her. Sazabi scanned over the tiny stick of graphite she'd presented him with, the yellowing slabs of pulp and binding she insisted he read. She was an organic being with only so much endurance. If the SDG meant to stop his resistance in a physical sense, he surely could fight back with sheer force of will.

"I will not do this ridiculous 'homework,'" said Sazabi. "You won't force me."

“Well, you’re right. I can’t force you,” said Ms. Ray morosely. “After all, I can hardly call your parents about the assignment.”

A half-subdued clip of laughter escaped before Sazabi beat his emotional center into submission. The idea of the woman picking up her phone and dialing the General in displeasure, only to get mind-breaking steel of enormous Elder Axian language in return… it was somehow more hilarious knowing the woman would do it, too.

“Spare me your hideous faces. I may do it, before expiring of boredom.”

How could organics shine light from behind their awful eyeballs? It was no clear communication, but Sazabi supposed he’d been growing more accustomed to their squashy way of emoting. They could ‘smile,’ for instance. 

Sazabi was determined not to think of how disgraceful it all was.

Ms. Ray had presented him a thick stack of histories. He had some of the most sophisticated sensors the Axis could provide, and he still had underestimated the number of volumes. She produced a thick stack of paper like a Lacroan-conjured handkerchief.

“I’m still not writing with a stick,” said Sazabi, staring with distaste at the graphite pencil she offered him. “My grip will snap it.”

“That’s why I bought a whole box,” his warden said cheerily. “This will just have to be an exercise in self control. And here’s a sharpener for them, if they do break. Your console privileges are still on hold, so you’ll survive composing a history report the old-fashioned way.”

Sazabi fit the slim stylus into his fingers. He’d handled bigger bullets.

“You can write, can’t you?”

“I should do it in hex,” Sazabi shot back threateningly.

“That would be difficult to grade, but whatever makes you comfortable.”

And after all of that, she finally put her offspring down. The screen across the room condescended to the blob: a lesson on stars and planets. How humans wrote data to their children was anybot’s guess.

“I’ll be in the next room proctoring an exam. Nana’s going to have to stay here for a bit. I hope it’s not too distracting. Keep an eye on her?”

She blinked, taken aback by herself. Then chuckled. “On second thought, you only have one eye. Do your best, and I’ll be right back.”

Sazabi could see her in the other room, her peripheral vision split between her child and her task. Stubbornly, the mech regarded the leaves of paper spread out in front of him. It took longer than he’d have liked to scan the material she’d left. I wasn’t written in a familiar layout.

But he did learn a few things. A book! What an ugly data format. If only he’d known the contents before invading the dimension.

Sazabi looked down at the splinters of pencil in his hand. He rummaged in the box for another, and began to awkwardly write. Humans had used this interface for their known history? How had they not all gone insane?

But Neotopia was a terraformed, colonized world. And a recent one, only within the past few hundred years. The old elementary-level book didn’t say from what solar system they originated from, only that it had been similar to the one Neotopia resided in. That was why beyond their county limits the planet dried to weeds and wasteland, why their seas were sparse of life. Why they had no political animosities or alliances. For all their peace and justice, until the Dark Axis had appeared, Neotopia had been an enclave alone in their galaxy.

What had the humans fled, to arrive on a dusty orange-blue planet. Something they had tried, and succeeded to forget. But their society reflected horror and dismay. Their harmony was a response to something, a something that Sazabi could only speculate about. What had scarred them all so badly, beyond the Dark Axis?

What that Gundam said. What that kid had said. In those words, the echoes of some violent, cultural memory.

_“This world was created by all of us together! A world where friends help each other to build, not destroy!”_

_”We don’t want to rule or be ruled by anyone! We’re all friends. Friends living together!”_

Who before him had tried to claim these people? And was it any wonder he had failed? The text avoided the subject. But the only conclusion was that Neotopia had been born of something far worse than his invasion. Something unknown to even the Dark Axis? Should they have known about it?

“Pla-nah! Sta! Sta!”

Nana’s laughter broke his composition. Across the room, the child groped towards the viewscreen, enraptured by patronizing drivel.

“You are a troublesome little being,” the large mech grumbled, trying to find his lost place. 

“C’maa! Gah!”

What transpired was outside of time. Like a scout shot out of the sky, the child tumbled forward and down from where she sat. There was a table in the way. But suddenly, Sazabi was across the room with a baby in his hands and the tile floor was smeared with a black ash streak where he’d somehow bypassed the bolt on his lower booster rockets. The table was overturned a meter away, papers still fluttering to the ground. Keiko stood alarmed in the doorway, surveying the damage.

“What happened?” She asked warily, staring at her child.

“What are you talking about? Nothing happened,” said Sazabi, honestly confused and trying to parse his way through a few hundred exceptions in his diagnostic. 

“You’re holding my daughter,” said Keiko. As soon as Sazabi heard that he almost dropped her before the woman could take the child away. She seemed unhurt. Rapt and babbling with glee, even. Evil little creature. How could that thing be so innocent when it had obviously made him…

Made him? How had she _made_ him catch her?

“Get out of my way,” he said, and thundered up to the glorified storage they kept him in. He was running a little too warm for his comfort.


	6. Failures

It was somewhat too late to analyze the enemy's facilities. While they worked on lifting their main base back into aerial position, the SDG still made use of spacious emergency premises. But obviously they wouldn't lead him past weapons storage. Or through hazardous zones. Or anywhere without a finger on that lockdown button. A gunperry shuttled him, and Keiko, to a classified location.

They took him to their dimensional transport device. That, Sazabi was appalled at. It was a huge, clattering structure, a monstrosity of engineering. The General could rend space-time, but the Axis had depended heavily on the Zakorello gate to pass between dimensions. Reverse-engineering either method from scratch was out of the question. But Neotopia dared. He could even see where they had begun to build their own Gate, the Zakorello's portal for their device only a temporary solution.

There was another human already waiting. A wide-eyed preadolescent with such a vapid and unfocused stare that Sazabi wondered if her binocular vision was calibrated. She was already forming small objects out of a soft material.

"Oh! Hello, Ms. Ray," she said sweetly, almost submissively. "I didn't know you were bringing Mr. Sazabi!"

His warden, strangely, was submissive back. "Well, I can leave Nana at daycare, but he's a bit more difficult. Maybe he can help?"

"I don't know... his friends weren't very good with cake."

"I'm sure he'll do fine," Keiko assured. "It's not exactly hard."

That was where she got him, there, that was her weapon. His kinematics vibrated in humiliation and fury. He could do anything she could and more, and his pride had never let her once go unchallenged. Even when she meant him to walk into it, how dare she? He was a commanding officer, and he was not to be diminished; it wasn't in his programming.  "It would be more useful if you informed me of the _tedious_ purpose in being here."

"Huh? Do you have someplace to be?" the adolescent asked.

Sazabi's optic flashed with barely-restrained rage. "Unfortunately, no."

"Great! You can help us make rice balls!"

The smaller human placed a formed lump on a wide orange tray. Sazabi was mildly aware that this was supposed to be biofuel.

Rice balls. He hadn't wanted to be reminded of Ark, of Kibaomaru. So Neotopia had this sort of nonsense too. "Why?"

"They finally figured out transporting objects, so we thought to send some to Shute and his friends," explained Keiko. "It would be a nice present."

"And why would I participate?"

"Well, it's better than sitting still and waiting for them to defeat the rest of the Dark Axis. This is a way to help."

"I don't see how it helps."

Keiko— ugh— smiled at him. "Trust me, mister."

Sazabi was mortified to hear her tone of voice. Lately, he suspected his warden had grown fond of him, despite his near-constant threats. Her partner, too, though with more irony. Sazabi had caught them referring to him as 'the other son,' accompanied by wry but sincere laughter. They shrunk him, reducing him to their concept of a ‘child.’

Despite this, it was still more mercy than the General would show anything. Sazabi didn't mind thinking of the wretched Gundam Force if he also thought of the rending metal, The General’s doom. The General, whose servants had left him behind, and had never intended to honor his effort with reinforcements or aid. The General, who likely had moved on to other worlds more ripe with gundanium.

His death was unlikely. But it was a pretty thought.

"Fine. Tell me how to make rice balls."

The juvenile (Sayla, she was introduced) was happy to show him. With small palms, she scooped and shaped the rice into a packed figure. Then she took a piece of that organic film and neatly wrapped it about the bottom. She placed it on the tray.

After washing his hands, Sazabi was given his own chance to try. He replayed the footage of Sayla's example before making an attempt. Imitating her, Sazabi scooped the rice and...

Brought nearly the whole bowl of rice with him. Keiko caught a laugh in the back of her throat and helped him. Shaping a more reasonable quantity was no easier. It took all the grip control he had to avoid crushing the whole thing into a paste. And when he had to pick up the thin sheets of film, there wasn't enough friction to grasp a single leaf. Sazabi's first product was a misshapen abstract. The second, drunken rhombus. The third, oblong pyramid. It was a gallery of incompetence. With every attempt, Sazabi's frustration grew. Thankfully, the activity didn't take long, and soon there was a veritable mountain of rice balls. Some of them more mountainous than others.

The amazing thing was that neither Sayla or Keiko seemed to notice his obvious failure, or if they did, they said nothing. They even praised him. Why did they even bother? He knew how bad he was at this.

He was grateful at being spared the indignity of failure, but their tolerance troubled him all the same.

Sazabi was not present when they were transported to the Gundam Force. He didn't expect they wanted to see him, anyway. Later, he asked Keiko if any of the worthless Gundams had choked and died on his attempts.

"Actually, they liked them," said Keiko serenely, grading her newest round of papers. "They thought they were good."

"What?! How can that be?!"

Keiko smiled at him, and sorted through her file folder. "Just because they didn’t turn out the way you wanted them to, doesn't mean they were a waste," she said. "Even if you think you failed, those rice balls tasted fine."

She pulled out a piece of paper. It was spiderwebbed with red pen. It bore with it a sense of dread.

"Your composition, though, needs work. I don't think it's appropriate to lead a paragraph with 'if you insects don't understand this essay, then I will raze you to ashes.' And your points lack citation, and I can’t find a transition at all. Your writing is solid, but too general. For a history paper, we have a long way to go."


	7. Just Deserts

60%

45%

20%

10%

2.3%

Sazabi watched the alerts flash by as the time stretched onward. It had been much too long since his last proper recharge. Resting every planetary night was at this point only delaying the inevitable. He wouldn't lower himself to begging for energy. And they even offered it to him. Do you need service, are you running low? Saying 'yes' could never have been more difficult.

.5%

And no matter how hard he tried, Keiko would not reveal to him where the power came in from. Sazabi was desperate enough to try adapting the house electric grid.

Toot!

Human celebrations came with useless, horrible noise. Whole disposable plastic tools dedicated to being as annoying as possible. 

"Cake! Mom, cake!" the child shrieked, her new word for the day. Cake filled her whole world for the moment. Filled that tiny, stupid brain.

.48%

"Happy birthday, Nanako!" said her male parent, using her proper designation for only the third time Sazabi had ever heard it.

Keiko was taking so many pictures so quickly Sazabi could almost imagine the camera lens smoked: semiautomatic bursts of muzzle flash. "One year old, honey! Congratulations!"

If Nana understood, it was eclipsed by the sight of chocolate cake in front of her. Then, alarmingly, the father stuck wax sticks into the edible, and set them on fire.

Fire! On their biofuel! Instead of consuming, they burned it? Before consuming it? Why?

Then, they began to sing. 

"Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you!"

All at once, Sazabi realized what was happening. What this was. The chilling truth.

"Happy birthday, Nanako! Happy birthday to you!"

This was a ritual. Lit candles, a sacrifice of food and resources, ceremonial chanting... This rite was a demarcation for Nanako, having successfully survived one year of operation. As if it was a worthy thing to celebrate. As if it could have been otherwise. As if it was likely to have been otherwise. Relief, that she was here, was not dead, had not been killed.

The song was done. The parents cheered, the mother blew out the candles. The brat didn't understand that step, or have enough breath. But these fragile humans... what savagery in their deep past compelled them, remembered dead progeny, was so honestly overjoyed that their young had not succumbed to disease or predation?

To him.

He was only one in a long history of hardships, of children that might not see their first year of operation end.

The humans were used to this. They could have survived a hundred, a thousand invasions. They might have already had.

The boy on the tower. In spite of his soft frame he had shown nothing but strength. No, because of his soft frame. It was because of their fragility that humans possessed such overwhelming conviction. They would not have survived without it.

Humans were still here, in numerous dimensions, despite every disadvantage.

Next year, there would still be ‘birthdays.’

.3%

"Would you like a slice of cake, Sazabi?" Keiko asked politely.

She'd already cut him a piece. She was holding it. This time, when he saw their offering, all he saw was fuel.

"Fine."

He weathered Keiko's near-devastating smile. Only for the spongy burnable in front of him. He unlocked his faceplate, opening his emergency fuel intake or a 'mouth' if related to organics. A leftover in design, from some pre-conquest era. Sazabi was not familiar with the origin, the same influence that cast their frames as bipedal androids like Gundams were.

Sazabi realized that everyone was staring at him.

"What?" he said, suddenly self-conscious. "Why are you looking at me that way?"

"I didn't know his face could do that," said the male.

To spite them, Sazabi opened and closed his oral hatch a few times, demonstrating how obvious it was. But all they did was laugh. Angrily, Sazabi stuffed the cake into his face and snapped the hinge shut for processing. He awaited the chemical analysis with a prickly displeasure.

He didn't expect... a reward of sorts. It was data. That didn't make sense. More of an uncategorized feedback. A sensation?

Sazabi instinctively knew this input was 'sweet.' 

They didn't stare, but still laughed behind his back. Then came the gifts. The babbling Nana of course didn't understand the new toys, the simple book, the floppy hat presented to her, but her parents certainly tried. Sazabi filched a second slice of cake while they were distracted. Finally, the energy alerts stopped. He processed that second piece greedily. A point of shame and excitement. Something disgusting, forbidden…

Sazabi was slowly losing his mind.

"Sazabi? Are you in there? Hello?"

Keiko was waving her hand up in his faceplate. "What?"

"Well, it's time for your present. Are you all right?"

"What’s it to you?" said Sazabi defensively. Then he stumbled on her words. "My... present?"

"Well, yeah," said the male. Sazabi remembered vaguely that this one's designation was 'Mark,' though he hardly heard it for how often the man was gone. "You were spacing out, but we don't know when your birthday is, so we thought you'd get your present now."

"No. A present. Why would you... for me?"

The idea that anyone or anything would give a gift to him... or that even gifts were things to be given freely, was almost unthinkable. Alien. The Dark Axis didn't do gifts. 

Or rewards, really. 

Or pay for service. 

Or anything.

"Sazabi? I’m serious, are you all right?"

Keiko was doing the hand thing again. To be fair, he was in the throes of an existential crisis. Sazabi brushed her away. "Don’t pester me." He paused, trying to stay as still as possible. Between this and the cake he felt a foggy latency. "What is this 'present?'"

As Nana's father began feeding his daughter bits of icing, Keiko explained. "Well, it's been a whole month since your last incident, so we thought to give you some privileges back."

Sazabi's optic flickered in surprise. A whole month? Really? But his internal clock didn't lie.

"You can have console privileges back, but I'm not turning parental filters off yet," Keiko said. "And you can leave the house. I've worked it out with the SDG. You can go anywhere so long as your chores are done. It doesn't have to be public, you can go someplace quiet if you like."

Her words took entirely too long to parse.

"Because you're too big for me to drive around, I asked for special permission to get your jet parts back. Please don't use them in the house!"

Sazabi was in shock. "You're going to... let me leave? No guards? Nothing?"

"Well, I can't say nobody's keeping an eye out. It wouldn’t be safe," Keiko said. "But it's not fair to make you stay forever."

"Why do you trust me?"

"I want to trust you," Keiko said. "Are you going to disappoint me?"

For the first time, Sazabi weighed the cost and benefits of his current situation. Versus an alternative. He felt like he was drifting far away from himself. It was even an easy decision, now that the concept of _his own_ slavery sat white-molten in his RAM.

"No," he admitted, unsure what he felt about this promise. He had once sworn an oath to the Dark Axis, affirmed his primary function. He was supposed to never disappoint his cause. He was a commander, so he commanded. 

What did that even mean anymore? He hadn’t failed to command the forces of the Dark Axis. But he had failed as a commander. Thus there was… something he should have done differently, to have ensured victory. The victory that Neotopia enjoyed, the keepers of that _something_. He wanted it. He wanted it more than anything else he had ever wanted before.

No! He hadn’t broken in Robo House, and he wasn’t going to break here!

"Well, there's a gunperry out back. When we're done here, we can all go and get your parts installed."

"You're not coming with me,” Sazabi said quickly.

And yet, Keiko remained unmoved. "Maybe if you're good for another few months, going to the SDG base alone can be your present."

"I can think of a ‘present’ or two for you," Sazabi threatened. And his warden was right to laugh, for she was in no danger.

His desire to strike her was gone.


	8. Flight of Fancy

It took dignity to resist flying in wide loops, sweeping arcs. When the ground receded under him, the possibilities only multiplied. Were parabolic. He could fly as fast and as far away from that small house as he could. He could take refuge on the moon. 

But he wasn't programmed to run away.

Sazabi looked down and watched the cars creep over highway veins, flowing to the market. He repeated the list to himself. Flour. One dozen eggs. One bag of peas.

Certainly a less prestigious objective than acquiring a whole dimension. But at least the taskmasters here were banal rather than fatal.

Still. He struggled to understand what elements made Neotopia strong enough to oppose him. From the sky, Sazabi could see the layout of Neotopia clearly. A developed central city node that seemed almost tolerable: metal, concrete, but ruined by ‘gardens’ and ‘parks’ and dysfunctional flourishes Neotopia called ‘art.’ Surrounding zones varied by function. The industrial and manufacturing zones were pleasing to the optic. And, if the humans preferred the ugly greenery around their living spaces, he could see why the rolling hills dotted with their habitation might be green. And because their infestation required roughage and livestock to fuel themselves, the agricultural nodes made at least practical sense.

But there were these worthless places thickly blanketed in trees. From the ground, Sazabi could suspect that they were there for terraforming reasons or even for reasons of worthless vanity. They blocked the view of barren hills beyond.

But these ‘forests’ were far larger than was necessary even by the most flawed judgement.

No one had mentioned a time constraint. Sazabi landed, smashing through several branches and leaving deep dents in the soft ground. Organic things had an odor, but easily covered by carbon and smoke.

The leaves crunched under his weight. There was a soundproofing element, to these overgrown zones. But the quiet was not one of space, or an orderly ship, or the Dark Axis command fortress. 

It was a silence built of incessant, smaller sounds that conflicted, canceling each other out. A breeze through the foliage. Calls and movements of organic creatures. The wooden creak overhead. On a sunny afternoon like this…

And where Sazabi looked, he imagined a more worthwhile use for the space.

Over there, that clearing? An ideal site for a smelting facility. And there? A manufacturing center. And here? Paved, of course. 

His steps hit something hard under the leaf litter. Sazabi shifted his weight, then scraped at the ground to find a thin crust of white stone.

Incredible. A patch the reverse-bagu-bagu had missed. The things were efficient, maybe, but could have a chance of error.

Sazabi soon realized what had happened when he found the remnants of a shell striking a divot into the landscape. Nearby, a large petrified creature (a… deer? With the antlers?) sat crumbled. The head was sundered from the body.

So they could not restore the shape of land or creatures that had been changed as stone.

And yet…

What tenacity the organic life fought back with. Weeds forced through the layer of rock. They were much like those he’d removed a dozen times from his warden’s flowerbeds. They were uncaring of this imposed order, too. A creeping vine traveled across the petrified beast’s dead face. This world would absorb it back into itself, consume it, as surely as the General would consume gundanium. 

A touch alighted on his metal skin. A fear stabbed through his mind, that this place was consuming him, too. He panicked. There was a slight crunching sound as he crushed the bird that had landed on his still self.

He opened his ungentle hand to look at the damage. He could move, so he hadn’t locked up. But suddenly he didn’t want to move from this spot. He saw the dead, fragile thing and could not imagine what he would replace it with in his ideal world.


	9. To Make an Omelet

Sazabi touched down in the lot of some facility marked “U-C Mart.” He barely cleared the automatic doors, had to squeeze sideways through a few of the aisles of human sundries.

One dozen eggs. One bag of flour. One of these packets of ‘peas,’ which seemed to be a vegetable product. Exactly what had been requested of him. No being had the right to laugh or say he’d failed in some way. He took the most efficient path to the exchange counter.

“I'm taking these. What authorization do you want me to give you?”

The attendant stared at him. Watery eyes spread wide.

“None,” said the attendant.

“What do you mean, ‘none?’” Sazabi said. “You mean to say that _anything_ can just ransack your stock, and account for none of it?”

“No, no,” said the organic, who did not seem to be fully mature. “I… just a minute, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”

They promptly fled from the stool they sat on, threw open the back service door, and were replaced by a larger, presumably more senior human.

“I see that you are new to Neotopia, sir,” said this new person, who wore a label of ‘Manager.’ This may have been their designation. “But I would be happy to explain. Basic amenities like food and shelter, it wouldn’t be right to withhold them. Unless you meant to get an industrial amount, there’s no need for special payment.”

“That’s idiotic. How can you say that these things, that obviously organics need to persist, are without value? Do you not ration your fuel, your resources?”

“We can always make more food,” said the manager. “It’s not a precious resource.”

“That makes no sense!” Sazabi yelled. “I find your organic sustenance is worthless, but your kind has no reason to agree!”

The manager flinched, and steeled their self up straight. “Sir, it’s not usually my job to debate philosophy with customers,” he said. “But you may have misunderstood. When I said that food is not a precious resource, I didn’t mean to say it was unimportant. I more meant that it was priceless. You can’t put a price on what people need to survive.”

Sazabi dropped the eggs down on the floor, smashed the carton with one broad foot. “There! Is it valuable, or value-less?”

The manager sighed, picked up the receiver to their left. “Clean up at the register,” they said over the intercom.

It was at that second that Sazabi realized that the others in the store were looking at him as if he was the waste. Not at his mess.

There were a few solutions he could think of. But only one that would not lock him up, result in having to explain he’d tried to destroy some puny beings over eggs.

Sazabi got another dozen eggs and left.


	10. Reclaimation

Neotopia didn’t make any sense.

Sazabi flew through the muggy air, a contrast to the humans’ climate control. The blue sky of this planet paled, and soon shifted to a dull red cut by low clouds. Below, towers cast trailing shadows.

No sense at all.

A load of confusing hypocrites. Resources had value. That was why they were resources. They pretended to trust him. But they knew the truth, for all their sickening ideals. They protected themselves first, monitoring his every movement and locking him down at the slightest hint of aggression.

Well. That wasn’t true. He could destroy plants, or eggs.

They’d enslaved him and claimed to be innocent of it, only looking out for others' best interests. They were no better or worse than the rest of his life.

The clouds closed overhead and did not move on.

The sinking sun of the planet revealed the holes in its infrastructure. Many still blocked-off. Some even still quietly smoldering. Shattered buildings stretching jagged claws across the landscape. The deep shadow of an artillery crater. Broken lines where transportation rails had not yet been repaired.

They were right not to trust him. From up here, the proof was clear. They’d not given him back the power of flight as a reward. They sought to remind him, of what he’d done. Like every other passive-aggressive detail of this dimension. How he fell short. Why he was unworthy of confidence, worthless, a failure…

They told him otherwise over and over. But when they smiled at him they knew every bullet he’d fired. When they spoke kindly they knew every ruin he’d left strewn over a dozen worlds. They lied to his face about friendship just to point out that he had none. They said they trusted him to show him how untrustworthy he was. They said to him, ‘smell this fresh air!’ All while they knew he preferred the smell of smoke.

He could sense that input even now.

Sazabi looked up from the world below. A cloud was rising over the hill. First white. Then, oily black. It punched up, soon a column.  His heading made straight for it. In fact…

But, it couldn’t be. Neotopia was a ‘peaceful’ world.

Sazabi touched down to find his warden’s home ablaze.

His one optic stared at it for a total of five seconds. He dropped the flour, peas, eggs. The eggs smashed on the ground again, too.

Then, he stepped forward. And, again. A third, faster. Then when he realized he was running, he charred the dirt with jet propulsion to move faster. The fire engulfed him harmlessly. He scanned for organic life, one of the last functions in his combat array left. It had never been intended for anything but smart targeting.

Fallen beams were nothing to the frame of a grand Dark Axis war mech. From under a collapsed eave, Commander Sazabi extracted the human Keiko. Like any of her kind, she was pitifully fragile. She coughed and coughed, and clung as Sazabi lifted her with one arm and smashed through the opposite wall and into the evening air.

She was trying to tell him something, gasping and choking with her feeble lungs.

“Enough! Respire first,” Sazabi commanded. “Then, report to me what happened here.”

Keiko ignored him for several seconds. Then she took deep, clear breaths, holding tightly to his frame. “He was waiting,” she said. “For you to leave somewhere without me. All this time.”

“What?! Who?” Sazabi demanded. “And where is your subordinate bondmate? And your offspring?”

“Mark’s… he’s working,” Keiko told him. “But that… that red Zako, I don’t know how he knows the security system, I…”

“Impossible! I discarded that shell myself. There is no red Zako,” Sazabi said. Then, louder, “Where is the infant?”

Keiko looked sadder than she had any right to be. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “He… he told me that he would kill her, if I didn’t k… keep you busy. Please, look out behind you.”

There was only an instant he could throw her down, turn around, dodge the oncoming shot. But in his sudden remembrance not to crush her, the EM pulse glanced off his exterior plating and whited his visual.

He was about to collapse.

No! Not here! Lunging forward to regain his balance, on all-fours like some pit beast. Vision restored.

“Commander Sazabi! As always, easily distracted. That’s too bad, zako.”

Up above on the roof of the burning house, was the Red Zako. Moving on its own. It had grafted a Doga bomber’s flight array to itself. Implying tampering, by someone with technical knowledge? In one hand, it held an unfamiliar make of weapon. Sazabi hadn’t remembered issuing anything like that to his army.

In the other hand, the mech held the larval human. Why didn’t he shoot again while he was down? But Sazabi hollowly knew that he, too, would be showboating the moment he held an advantage like that.

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing,” Sazabi snarled. “But if you hand over that organic, alive, I’ll let you explain before I destroy you.”

“Zako, I will keep it for now. You will not harm me so long as I hold it,” said the Red Zako. “I knew you were weak from the start. Your failure was eventually inevitable.”

“You and I both know that you’re no Zako!” Sazabi roared. “Hand it over! Now!”

A cry erupted from beside Sazabi’s elbow. Keiko threw a brick at the Red Zako’s helm. It did not even mean to dodge. “So much for ‘peaceful’ Neotopians,” it said, in an entirely different voice. “It takes so little for them to show their true selves. Betray everything they stand for. Why, she nearly sold you out. All for this tiny organism.”

“Let go of my daughter!”

“It’s willing to attack me, even while I hold it’s offspring,” said the Red Zako. “And here you are, ‘Commander.’ Stalled by children again.”

“Enough!”

A dust and embers scattered aside where Sazabi blasted forward, meaning to seize his foe. But as he neared, it too activated jet boosters and flew aside. Then up. The child in the Zako’s grasp was crying.

“Now, now. You know that if you lash out and harm me, you’ll fall out of the sky.” Siren noise rose over the crackling embers. “But you’ll have to come get the little maggot. If you care about it.”

And he flew away from the sunset.

The former Dark Axis Commander trembled. He was engulfed in fire.

“Sazabi!”

Down below, Keiko was… looking at him. He had seen that look before. Pleading. Desperate.

Crying humans had gotten even worse.

He turned away from her and ascended, cutting a hole through the smoke. Over the forests and the hills, until he finally caught up with his target. Away from any audience at last, he called out the one he knew was responsible.

“Gerbera! What are you doing?!”

“Me? Making use of the proxy you so arrogantly discarded. The better question is— what are you doing alive?”

The Red Zako proxy was, at least, an accurate shot. Not a quick one, but Sazabi was a larger target than most. The EM rounds struck somewhere below, splintering trees.

“You assume I had a choice? These Neotopians are obsessed with keeping everything alive!”

“Less obsessed than they seem,” said Gerbera, making some show of reloading the unknown weapon. “Where do you suppose I got this, hm? A weapon, designed to incapacitate you? They leave them just lying around, if you know where to look. Waiting for the correct moment: when they decide you cannot be trained.”

Sazabi roared, lunged, so close to the proxy in the sky. Dimly, a thought churned in the back of his processor… what was the G threshold for human young? Surely though, Gerbera would know that if the child was dead, there would be nothing to hold him back…

He almost locked up right there. It took all his emergency protocols to halt that impulse before it travelled down his nervous circuits to his soul drive, and the bolt attached to it. As a result, his flight boosters shut down for a fraction of a second. Enough for Gerbera’s proxy to pull ahead again.

“Did you actually think they trusted you? That they valued your life? As always, you’re a dupe.”

But Sazabi only laughed.

“I would expect nothing less of Captain Gundam’s kind,” Sazabi said. “They deny it, but they know the truth. They have faith in their power to dominate. You will soon be surprised, when they arrive to assert it.”

Shot after shot streaked past Sazabi’s plating. In retrospect, the trap had been obvious! No one Zako, even a proxy driven by someone more competent, could eliminate him. Guerilla Dogas rose out of the plant life below. Furious, Sazabi accounted for every company he had ordered in to strike Neotopia, ran the numbers as fast as he could.

“You simple mech! Is that what you still believe? Even after you’ve lost?”

The assault first scattered off his armor. Then, they began to make impact. Sazabi had to fly high to escape. What a time for even the first thought of weapons to mean his demise!

“Do you know how long you would have ruled Neotopia? Three standard days! That’s all! Enough time to gather up all the mobile citizens and melt them down.”

“Is that why you’re here? To taunt me from behind that puppet?” Sazabi fell into a steep descent, spiralling between the gunfire. What Gerbera said did not hurt as much as expected. Somehow, he had always known it.

His entire self pulled in, shadowing a Doga. The others shot at him, shot through one of their own. Then, he rolled to the left, and again, and again, all the while weaving between Gerbera’s own assault. It occurred to him he’d… never actually put himself in this position before. He rarely risked anything in person. And yet, something about this seemed  _essential._

“No, Sazabi. I am not here to taunt you,” said Gerbera. “Though that is an unexpected bonus. No, when I put that soul drive into you, approved your waste of gundanium, I expected a return on my investment. One way, or another!”

Sazabi pulled up, flew directly at Gerbera’s proxy now. If he could get close maybe he could manage to… do… something? Anything that might get around what the SDG had done to him and—

Gerbera dropped the child.

Sazabi dove. The world spun. He could hear Gerbera laughing above, mocking his foolishness, his corruption. They were all taking advantage of this to shoot at him. But the barrage over his scarred armor barely felt like anything. So long as his massive body was a shield.

He slowed descent to match the child, reached out, and with both hands plucked them from the air. The canopy sprang up to meet him. Sazabi had only a moment to ease to the correct descent speed. Land on the desperate ground.

The only light was him. Sazabi had to open his hands, inspect the… the damage.

“‘’Zabi!”

The child was alive! Chilled, covered in mucus and slime. But alive!

“Nana, you are nothing but troublesome to me,” Sazabi grumbled. That only caused the small being to babble, reach for his glowing red optic. Then scream and cry as sudden shots marred the wilderness. Fire and energy pulses from the forces above. Sazabi hastily looked around. No, there was no leaving Nana here. No one would know where to recover her, and she was too weak to survive on her own. And it was sheer foolishness to try and use the cover of darkness to _walk_ back to civilization. At least a few Dogas were capable of hiding from any amount of Neotopian forces, and would strike again until he was in custody.

No, he had to come up with something. Surely, he was a brilliant strategist, invader of dozens of worlds. There had to be a way!

He opened his ventral compartment. Where one-third of his mega particle cannon array had once sat. Now, empty. But! G-controlled, to protect volatile apparatus! Armored, so long as it remained shut! Safe! So long as she wasn’t in there long…

“In you go,” Sazabi said, and sort of… stuffed the child inside. Luckily, she thought it was some sort of hiding exercise. He sealed it up. And expended all effort to ignore the sensation. He could feel her giggling.

He lifted off, breaking branches until he was free in the sky. In the far distance were lights of civilization.

“I suppose you've killed it,” Gerbera projected through his proxy. The EM weapon was back, now that it was no longer wasting shots. And more dangerous-seeming, if watery humans conducted electricity.

Sazabi ignored the taunt. It was somehow easier when focusing on moving his payload far from Gerbera, far from the Dark Axis. And, eventually, far from himself too. As the firefight danced after his contrail, Gerbera’s words dimmed. None of that cohort were anywhere near as fast has he was. They’d never drag him back to the General. Never.

Though, they would chase him until their bodies gave out or were destroyed. And he was leading them directly to the city center. While the blasted Captain Gundam was off on a fool’s errand to kill a Mecha God— though he did not know it.

Another mech flashed past in midair. Then gone. But not for long, regrettably. They'd rolled and doubled back.

“Whoah! I should have known you had something to do with this,” said the very irritating aerial Gundam that Sazabi only knew was not Captain Gundam, but some sport-model knockoff. “Didn’t you get the memo? Invasion’s over!”

“You’d do better to tell Gerbera that,” Sazabi said. “If you do anything with that insolent mouth of yours!”

“Who?! How many more of you creeps are there?”

“Multitudes! If it matters,” said Sazabi. “Enter the cloud cover, Gundam, and full stop.”

“It’s Guneagle, and, I don’t take orders from y—”

Sazabi bodily seized the other mech midflight, pulled up and soon was engulfed in the low-hanging evening cloud and the darkness inside it. He slowed until both of them were hovering.

“You will take orders from me. And you will do so promptly, and most importantly without complaint,” said Sazabi. Then, he opened his hatch, and produced the small human within.

“You’ve got to be joking,” said Guneagle.

Sazabi held Nana out. When Guneagle just stared at him, he snarled, “Isn’t it your function to protect pointless lives? Take. The baby.”

“I… right! Right…” Guneagle took Nanako, who was getting fairly wet in the cloud. He did not remove his hands until it was clear the oaf of a Gundam wouldn’t drop the child. “Wouldn’t it make more sense if you flew back, while I blew up the bad guys? Seeing as you kinda… don’t have any weap—”

“You’re going to leave an infant in _my_ custody?”

“Well… okay, you have a point. But still! If you go back, I—”

“These are your orders,” said Sazabi. “You are to carry this human child back to its designated zone. You are to defend this payload above all other priorities. You are to do this without detour. You are to personally ensure that it is done. You will later report to me that it was done. Am I clear?”

“Y… yes sir?”

And in his most oil-clotting tone of command, he amended, “And if the brat sustains so much as a scratch, I will personally rip the circuits from your frame, component by component.”

Guneagle stammered, “Understood,” and practically fled in a rout. Hopefully with care for the fragile sack of flesh it carried, and more savvy to assault than to bluffs. Alone in the dark again, Sazabi flew off to settle old business.


	11. He Knows

“Captain? Is something wrong?”

There wasn’t much for day or night adrift in the Minov boundary sea. And the Gundamusai was like a spaceship anyway. Shute sort of knew about bedtimes, but if mom and dad weren’t around, and they weren’t getting anywhere fast… why not do a whole lot of fun stuff? Watch movies? Play games? Stay up and go to sleep whenever you wanted?

Run into Captain when you were pretty sure he’d powered down for his recharge like, twenty minutes ago?

“No. Not that I know of,” said Captain.

“Then what’s up?” Shute asked. “Can’t sleep?”

“Not… technically,” said Captain. “I was thinking about what Commander Sazabi said.”

“That was ages ago,” said Shute. And it wasn’t so great to worry about how fast they’d get where they were going. “He said a bunch of bad stuff. What are you worried about?”

“How in some ways, we are the same.”

“No way! It doesn’t matter if he also has a soul drive. You two are nothing alike!” Shute said. He counted on his fingers. “You’re a good guy, and he’s not. And you care about other people, and he doesn’t. And you fight to protect everybody, and he fought to destroy everybody. And you’re super cool, and he’s a big jerk.”

“That’s encouraging, Shute,” Captain said. “But doesn’t rule out possible similarity.”

“Okay, that’s true,” Shute said. “But I mean it. Don’t go thinking that because… because he did bad things with his Soul Drive, you might too.”

“I assure you, that was not what I was thinking of.” Captain paused. “Shute, before I met you, things were very different.”

“Yeah.”

“I was not permitted to contact any civilian citizens of Neotopia. I was activated for a specific purpose: to carry out my assigned duties and responsibilities, and adhere to code of law and ethics to protect the peace. As the prototype unit of my series, and the only one to carry a soul drive, the SDG did not know what to expect from me.”

“Sounds boring.”

“M-hm. It was.” Captain Gundam looked out the viewing window, to the endless silvery space between dimensions. “But, based on that experience… I wonder if Commander Sazabi was similar.”

To Shute, that wasn’t a good example of two things being alike. “That you were both just doing your jobs?”

“Correct. But… more than that.”

“More?”

“I had never learned anything outside of my assigned purpose. Until I met you, Shute.” Captain Gundam was very still. “But odds are, Commander Sazabi has been in an evil version of that place. Maybe for a long time.”

That was,

It was sad.

“You’re right,” Shute said. “You know? I don’t know everything you two talked about while you were fighting. But you could have missed a lot of what he said before you, um, got back… do you remember?”

“I had only limited awareness, Shute.”

“It was all, ‘there are only rulers and people who get ruled’ and other puffed-up stuff,” Shute said. “But there’s lots of cool, not-evil things you say all the time. Not only because it’s your training, but you also believe them too.”

“That’s what I am thinking about. How none of those words were actually the important factor.”

“Sure they are!”

“In an objective sense,” said Captain Gundam. “But until I met you, and met the Neotopia I had sworn to protect, I did not know what any of it really meant.”

“Sheesh. That’s heavy,” said Shute.

“I guess.”

Shute thought.

“I know mom’s trying super hard to make him behave. Everything is probably different for him, and seeing new things was important for you, so... Do you wonder if like, he’ll...wake up or something?”

“I don’t know if it will be the same, Shute,” Captain said. “If he and I really are connected somehow, then I do know some kind of event is highly probable.”

“How big a chance do you figure?”

Captain Gundam looked away from the dimensions speeding past the forward window, and at his best friend. “Eventually, one-hundred percent.”


	12. Control Device

Now, this was refreshing.

There was no way for any soldier of the Dark Axis to surprise Commander Sazabi. He’d destroyed more of them than even some enemy dimensions. And why not? Their components were easily reclaimed. They were part of an invasion budget anyway, set aside as acceptable casualties.

But to face them from the other side, that was interesting. Finally, something he could understand!

“Unusual, irrational tactics,” scorned Gerbera’s avatar. “Most unlike your normal cowardice. I’d thought it was against your programming to take action unless your victory was all but assured. Why risk confrontation, when you could crawl back to the sanctuary of Neotopia?”

“Big words! But phoned-in,” Sazabi replied. Enough of this dancing around, setting up friendly fire, trying to compensate for weapons he did not have. He aligned, a straight shot closing in to the proxy shell. He could feel the damage to his armor now. None of the patch-job was battle-ready. Much of him was warped and pitted beyond repair and a few pieces were breaking loose.

Nothing had touched his flight array, though. That was all that mattered. Pain? Ha! This was nothing compared to fighting Captain Gundam. The enemy was less accurate, the enemy was less experienced, the enemy was... The Dark Axis.

How interesting that he felt no sense of loss. It was good to have an enemy again.

Now only a few dozen yards and closing, the Dogas did not fire, did not risk hitting the one giving the orders. Idiots! But a welcome change. The only gun now to circumvent was the proxy’s. And now, free in the air and away from…

that this was _his_ commanding officer,

that he was an agent of anything greater,

from everything!

This was only a proxy operating wirelessly on remote, over dimensions, and its reaction time was slag-poor.

There was an instant before he would be shot point-blank. Sazabi’s focus worked in nanoseconds, though, so this was no bother to him. He grabbed the Red Zako around the midsection and conceptualized clearly what Neotopia’s invasive surveillance would find acceptable. This was a remote-control drone with a weapon that it wasn’t permitted to carry. It was a hazard, that he was removing. Like deactivating an autoturret or disarming a bomb.

Sazabi ripped the gun out of the proxy’s hands. The EM rifle fell stories into the night-blanketed landscape. Sazabi pulled up, straight up and cut through the clouds and the dark, droplets sparking over the damage to his frame.

“This is pointless,” said Gerbera, who still taunted him from the disabled proxy. “What do you mean to accomplish? You have no weapons. You cannot even tear this puppet’s arm off with your bare hands. And even if you _do_ manage to attack it somehow, you’ll never hit _me._ ”

Sazabi felt his own vicious laughter rattle his loose parts. “I don’t need weapons to attack you, Gerbera. You came to fight with only weaklings and a pathetic, cast-off shell. I don’t need to fire a single shot. And I don’t need to get my fingers around your wretched neck.”

They cleared the clouds, the sweeping barren tropopause.

“But you knew you’d never overpower me. Even in my state, I more than outclass my own avatar. So why are you here?”

The Zako proxy was not anywhere near as satisfying as interrogating the real Gerbera. But several centuries of taunting had revealed that for a mech of many secrets, Gerbera had an overwhelming urge to explain.

“By my calculations, you were never supposed to survive,” Gerbera spat. “But no matter. Any data on Captain Gundam I could have ripped from your memory banks would have sufficed. It doesn’t matter either way.”

“What do you mean, it doesn’t matter? Of course it does!” Sazabi snarled. He pushed his flight boosters to the limit, feeling the air thin around him. “You sent me here! You knew that I would not return! Despite all that I am worth!”

“Worth? You are worth nothing more than your utility to the General, a utility you have long outlasted!” Gerbera had never, to Sazabi, taken such a frantic tone. “You were created to lead the Dark Axis into conquest, into worlds ripe for the General to consume. You were given a Soul Drive to elevate you above your soldiers, a symbolic tie to the General. A control device. Nothing more!”

The stillness of the stratosphere and the low air density propelled the flight smoothly upwards, no resistance. Into the dark. Into the field of stars, until the curve of this lonely planet arched below. There was a building warmth, a distant sun’s heat caught in a fragile blanket of ozone.

“It’s time you understood that you are not the one in control,” Sazabi said. And then, he thought with all his dark imagination. The sensation of ripping into sheet metal. Snapping vital kinematics. The scent of fresh oil and hydraulic fluid over his hands. How desperately he wished to tear something apart.

Sazabi’s flight boosters flickered and died. Gerbera’s proxy struggled, tried to activate the its own rockets and realized that it could not escape a deadlocked embrace.

They fell to earth.

The Red Zako’s optic faded out but only for an instant. Sazabi still had access to non-articulated functions, connected wirelessly and locked Gerbera in.

“What? How dare you! Let me go!”

“You will experience this!” Sazabi yelled, tumbling down, down. “You will know my suffering, and you will know defeat!”

“How dare you speak to me of suffering?! You know _nothing!_ ”

“This is only a taste of the loss you will sustain, for underestimating my worth! The worth of all you have wasted! The worth of worlds!”

The cold wind howled, but the solar heat still seethed over Sazabi’s ravaged shell, raged within his deepest core. He embraced that light. Something within broke free.


	13. The Red Comet

A gunperry was the fastest way to the hospital. It wasn’t the first time Keiko Rey had ridden in one, or had held her daughter aboard one. But emergency or not, there weren’t any chances worth taking. Nanako was only a baby! Who knew what being around all that smoke and high altitudes could have meant for her?

“Honestly, I’m fine,” she dismissed, rocking her child. “I’ve already called Mark. He’ll meet us at the clinic.”

“Well, if you’re sure,” said the officer Juli, who Keiko had made great friends with some time ago. It was nice to know about her real job, though.

“Could you maybe add Kao Lyn to the call?” Keiko said. “I’m worried about Sazabi.”

“Really?”

“He did get Nana back from that other Dark Axis brute,” Keiko said. “I know Guneagle’s out looking for him… but still.”

“Well, okay. He’s not classified anyway,” said Juli. A little icon of a ringing phone flashed in the corner of the craft’s viewscreen for three seconds before the doctor picked it up.

“Aha! Ms. Keiko! What a pleasure it is to hear from you-hoo!” he, well, laughed. Or sang. He was sort of a funny man, but very brilliant and pleasant.

“Sorry for the conference call,” said Keiko. She shifted Nana to her other shoulder. “But Sazabi hasn’t returned. Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

“Well, Axian bio-mechanics are, I have to admit, completely new to me! I did install the safety lock and a systems monitor, though. But I’ll tell you right now, most of the data I get back is alien! I’m still figuring it out,” admitted Kao Lyn very quickly, punctuated by several creative poses. “But I’ll tell you what I’ve got here.”

He turned aside to one of his many monitors, typed, searched, pulled up interfaces of increasing complexity. Grimaced. He didn’t dance as he went through the findings.

“What’s wrong?”

“Well, he’s locked up tight for sure,” said Kao Lyn. “But according to his altimeter he’s somewhere way up in the sky! Oh, that can’t be good!”

Nana babbled in her mother’s ear. “Sta! ‘Zabi!”

“Ssh,” Keiko hushed. “He’s… falling?”

“Yes, and falling fast. Wait, too fast! Hold the phone! Hold, maybe a dozen phones!”

Juli cut in from the original call. “Doctor? What is it?”

“This can’t be! I’ve only seen this kind of energy output from Captain! I’m not sure if Sazabi’s soul drive has ever discharged itself before,” said Kao Lyn. He frantically pulled up more esoteric numbers. “But he shouldn’t be able to move or do anything!”

“Mom! Comet!” Nana shrieked, laughing and reaching over her mother’s shoulder.

Keiko turned around. A star was dropping from the sky: bright and golden and close. It inched nearer, a flare trailing behind it. It sped up parabolically. Until it cracked in a solar burst and vanished. As the dazzling spots faded, Keiko realized it hadn’t burned up. Fire marked a fresh crater punched into a faraway hillside. The thunderclap came after.

Keiko didn’t know what to say. She turned back to the view screen. The monitors behind Kao Lyn had gone disturbingly calm. Juli hid her frown between two cupped hands.


	14. Get Well Soon

Sazabi had undergone a full drive and diagnostic boot only three times before in his long and storied operation. First, his original boot and assignment as Commander of the Dark Axis invasion forces. Second, after his humiliating defeat by Captain Gundam when he awakened to find himself in a Robo House isolation chamber. Third, to reboot in Keiko’s home.

Now, again. In a clean, white-paneled room. Lit with full-spectrum lights, a curiosity of the humans and a preference for their sun. On one side was a large viewscreen and console. On the other, a few displayed images of Neotopian landscape ‘art.’ 

Sazabi was laying on a clean table, presumably to recharge after maintenance. He was not shaped well for reclining, and turned himself over. On this other side was a table, covered in strange offerings. A small, ornately-decorated cake. A plate of seven neat rice balls. A potted yellow flower, from Keiko’s garden bed. Sazabi rolled his optic and picked up the paper card half-folded next to the whole mess.

On the front was a printed ‘GET WELL SOON!’ with a stylized illustration of a smile on it. Which, if he was a human, might be poignant. But Sazabi did not have a mouth capable of smiling, nor was being incapacitated very smile-worthy in his opinion at all. Inside, Keiko had handwritten something in the same red pen she graded papers in.

_Sazabi,_

_I don’t know how to thank you for bringing my daughter back. I’m sure you had your reasons for doing what you did. I appreciate them, and you for going to the trouble to do that. Nana thinks so too. You’re her hero! She drew a picture of you yesterday._

Taped to the other side of the card was a small piece of paper covered in red crayon scribbles. For being complete garbage, it was fairly impressive. Sazabi dislodged the tape and set it aside. The card continued on the other side of the fold.

_You probably don’t like any of the get-well presents we could ever give you. But Sayla, Mayor Gathermoon and I decided to try anyway. Even if you can’t appreciate them, try to see it as our way of saying we care. I hope you’ll understand._

_I know that you have done many terrible things, Sazabi. And they don’t go away just because of forgiveness. But I believe in you. And I think everybody else should, too._

_Get well soon,_

_Keiko, Mark, Nanako_

_and_

There were a surprising amount of names at the bottom of the card. These people couldn’t _actually_ be concerned for him. They were coerced into wishing him well. They expected something in return, maybe. Otherwise, why would they?

Though, hypothetically, if that was the way things were in Neotopia…

Sazabi admitted that would be acceptable tribute.

The metal table creaked as he slid off of it, performed a secondary diagnostic of his own components. Several of them were obvious replacements for hardware that must have been obliterated in the crash. They had a clean, surprising efficiency. The others had been serviced and restored. Even if he still was barely kitted, the work was a pleasant change. There was no feeling ‘like new,’ but there was something in sloughing off a few centuries at least.

He turned around to find the door, only for a protruding spar of his wide frame to knock the potted plant from the end table. Thankfully, there was at least a second to catch it. Clumsy! Who had put it so close to the edge? He shoved it behind the other ‘presents.’ It was as if the world _wanted_ to make him look like an oaf who spread disgusting compost all over the place.

Sazabi exited the room, walked heavily through the renovated hallways until he came to a gaping open space. Unlike the last time he had passed through the SDG base he was not escorted. The underlings all pretended not to see him, robot and human alike. Which suited Sazabi fine, even if it wasn’t as good as staring in awe or groveling in submission.

(Well. He could take the submission part with or without the groveling. Many things seemed somehow more tacky these days. A thousand disposable underlings groveling was fun. Irreplaceable, if annoying associates groveling was less fun. It got awkward.)

“You,” he demanded of a nearby mobile citizen of some indeterminate function. “Where is your leader? I want to speak to them.”

“Um,” said the mobile citizen. “You mean Chief Haro? He’s… He’s up in his office, Sir.”

“Listen, I know his name. But it’s not important to me,” said Sazabi. “Take me to him, or tell me where he is, and be quick about it!” He amended that bizarre, cultural word that Keiko suggested he add to his vocabulary to get a more favorable reaction. “Please.”

The mobile citizen pointed to a lift across the indoor ‘park’ space. “Level five, sir.”

“Fine. Get out of my way.”

Sazabi rode up that lift. Why the Neotopians put a _park_ with _water_ and _plants_ in their military headquarters _suspended in the sky_ , that was a secret for them alone. Still, the grunts here seemed to be industrious when they weren’t wasting their time with leisure. And they had managed to overcome _him_ , so they were doing _something_ right. There was one time when Keiko had said something about flowers “lifting the mood” in her house. Whatever that meant.

He only had to question one more SDG subordinate to arrive at the office of this Chief Haro. He had seen a projected image of this being before, and seen the figure at a distance. And of course heard his voice. But in person, Haro was as impenetrable as the rest of his dimension. Ambiguous with a metal facade, but human-like clothing and posture. But whatever material the covering was made of, it dampened conventional sensors. For a society of organics integrated with robots, it was a strategic move to present a military leader as both or neither. Lest one kind think the other had more of a say in war.

“I hope your repairs meet with your approval,” said Haro. “When you were brought in you had been severely damaged. We are lucky that your memory and core systems, and your soul drive, remained intact.”

“You could have been _rid_ of me,” Sazabi said. “If I were you, I would have left me for scrap.”

“Then you should be thankful that I am not you,” said Haro. “I can’t expect someone from the Dark Axis to understand, but it’s not our way in Neotopia. All sapient lives have potential. If it’s possible, we will save as many as we can.”

Sazabi scoffed. “I’ll add that alongside the other platitudes you have bored me with.”

“But, I don’t think you came up here only to argue,” said Haro. “Unless you did. I don’t know what you consider entertainment in your own dimension, but we don’t find that very recreational. As I’m sure you’ve learned by now.”

“No. I have information. On the Dark Axis. On the nature of your enemy. If you want access to it, then I will permit a _trade_.”

“That’s interesting. I remember you saying in no uncertain terms that you’d never break under questioning.”

“I will never break,” Sazabi said hotly. “I have re-prioritized. The Dark Axis officer I confronted made it clear to me that there is nothing left in any loyalty to their cause. The General’s only further use for me is _fuel_.”

“Who is this officer? This general?”

“Ah-ah. No freebies, Haro.” Sazabi said. “That would only undermine my information’s value. And I can say with confidence that, without my knowledge of the Axis’ command structure, _precious_ lives will be at further risk.”

“I didn’t think you cared,” said Chief Haro.

“It doesn’t really matter if I care or not,” Sazabi said. “Apparently you Neotopians do.”

“Very well, Commander Sazabi. What is it that you want?”

“Revenge,” Sazabi said. “Justice. Remove my security lock. I want full weapon capabilities back. So long as I can point them at the General. He’ll pay for using me. And, I suppose, for profiting from the invasion of your _charming_ back-sector ball of dirt.”

Chief Haro sat unreadable for a few moments. Then leaned back to laugh. Sazabi stamped his foot impatiently, waiting for Haro to be done with his outburst.

“I apologize. It’s just that there’s no need to remove the security lock from you,” said Chief Haro. “It was destroyed when your soul drive activated. Kao Lyn told me it literally melted.”

Sazabi froze. Looked at his hands. He could strangle this strange, spindly being. If he wanted to.

“So there’s no point re-installing one,” said Chief Haro. “It’s interesting though. We have only a limited understanding of the soul drive, based mostly on Captain Gundam. It would do us a great service if you told us, exactly what was on your mind that caused it to activate.”

“That’s none of your business,” snapped Sazabi. “Do I have to launch an assault on the General myself?”

“I cannot by myself authorize any mobile citizen to carry firearms in Neotopia,” said Chief Haro at last. “But I think there is a path towards acquiring a special dispensation to do so.”


	15. Battle Joined

This was a bad day for Zapper Zaku.

You spend all that _time_ and all that _patience_ doing the goody-two-fuse act. You tolerate all the humiliation of scrubbing floors and _singing_ about it too. You go so far as to _touch_ a plant!

And this, this is what he had to show for it? Explosions _everywhere_ finally and _none_ of them were being caused by _him!_ The opportunity to strike _there_ in front of him, the big ol’ General just floating around being all menacing, and it turns out that he’s _impervious_!

“So like, who’s side are we on again?” Grappler Gouf asked, almost yelled at the pleasantly red sky. “We’re the bad guys, right? But if we’re the bad guys, why are the bad guys shooting at us?”

“I don’t feel so good,” admitted Destroyer Dom.

About fifty aimless Zako soldiers agreed, groaning. The General wasn’t very picky about energy.

“I feel you, big guy, but what are we supposed to do now? Help the General? Help those Gundams? Just sit here on our chassis and do nothing?”

“Not get creamed by missiles!” yelled Zapper Zaku. He wasn’t going to trip up Grappler no matter how tempting it was. There was no point losing the guy when he’d come this far. There wasn’t anywhere to run though, so Zapper Zaku waited for whatever was going to happen to be done with already.

A particle beam chose that moment to blast down from the sky and obliterate the oncoming barrage. Now, so far they’d all gotten lucky that almost everything had been knocked off-course by the time it fell to ground level. But Zapper Zaku had gotten his aft kicked by almost every party present and he was fairly sure even with their ridiculous cheating magical powers and upgrades and endless supply of hands-holding allies the Gundam Force wasn’t able to just up and call in a localized particle blast.

Watching it was beautiful. It also reminded him of significant agony.

When he finally sorted out his optics from staring at it though, he saw a figure land before him that, uh, had to be dead. He had been pretty sure was dead! What else could he be?

“C-Commander!”

“Commander Sazabi!”

“Boss…!”

And it had to be the Commander, because when he turned around and his funnels rearranged Zapper felt himself flinch.

But the funnels mostly just blew a couple Dogas out of the sky before they could get too close. “Well? What do you lot have to say for yourselves?” The Commander yelled as loud as ever. “One of you, I don’t care which, report!”

“Well, you see,” Grappler began sheepishly. “We’ve been… deep in enemy territory! Waiting for orders, yeah! After this lugnut Zapper here got himself brainwashed by those Neotopians, I took it upon myself to—”

“Don’t listen to him, Commander. It was all an act, to infiltrate the enemy ranks! Sweeping? You all really fell for that?!” Zapper proclaimed, to many bots’ surprise. “I was just pretending to be under their control. I knew you didn’t abandon us—”

“Uh, where did you go?” said Destroyer Dom.

“Enough!” Sazabi roared. Then when the crowd around him stopped cowering in fear, he continued. “It doesn’t matter. However it happened, you’re here now. And, I recall my command over you wretched assemblage of parts was never terminated. Therefore, you will _end_ your pointless milling about, _form up_ , and _fall in_ for my _counterattack!”_

“S-sir… Forgive me for asking but… isn’t that the General?” Grappler Gouf said weakly. “You know… _your_ boss?”

“Are you implying that that _thing_ deserves to rule over _me?_ ” Sazabi snarled. “That has abandoned each and every one of us? That profits from _lies_ fed to us on its behalf? That _imposes_ upon everything that you, and I might claim for our own?”

“Commander’s got a point,” Zapper said. Eerily, despite how furious the Commander sounded, Zapper couldn’t remember a time the the guy’d seemed this _happy_.

“Of course I have a point!” said Sazabi. “Now, where is your equipment?! What are you all even doing here without it? This is a battleground, pick something up _now!”_

Zapper Zaku watched in awe while the Commander whirled around and fended off another wave of the General’s attack, nearly single-handedly. The Zako soldiers took that time to scour the area for some kind of weapon to use. Grappler and Dom were already good. But Zapper couldn’t shake the feeling that something was… off about the Commander.

He hadn’t destroyed _anyone_ friendly yet. And he was… doing all this work right in front of them. Sure, it was clock-stoppingly impressive. Instinctively he was drawn to respect it. Kind of an… aura? A halo? Of what? And sure, the Commander was looking real good for having come back from the dead. Zapper couldn’t put his servo on it. What was wrong? Was he more active? More courageous? More passionate? More inspiring? No, no, something else…

Nicer? That was just _disturbing_ to think about. Had to be something else. Zapper Zaku looked more closely once the barrage calmed and the battle momentarily shifted elsewhere.

That was when he saw that over the Commander’s armor, there was the unmistakable badge of the Neotopian SDG. Not a sticker. A real one. Like Captain Gundam’s.

His core went numb with horror. They’d got him. They’d got him _for real_.

“Well? What are _you_ doing standing around?” yelled Commander Sazabi. “Don’t you have something to shoot?”

“I, er,” said Zapper Zaku. “To convince those Neotopian scum I was under their mind control, I… had to surrender all my weapons.”

“Fine! I see I have to manage _everything_ for you incompetents,” Sazabi grumbled. From a panel in his armor, he pulled a fairly wicked-looking beam shot rifle. “Take my sidearm and be ready for my command.”

Zapper Zaku forgot every single one of his doubts about the Commander at once. The Commander trusted him with his gun. This was a good day for Zapper Zaku.


	16. Friends

Down one flight booster, three of his funnels, and much of his armor, Commander Sazabi looked up at the General in disgust. Feeling the most keen, pure hatred he had ever experienced in his entire operation. The _thing_ was gloating, projecting the suffering of that human boy for the entire battlefield to see.

Now, Commander Sazabi was a fan of some tasteful suffering here and there. But this was insulting to him, personally.

And everyone around him was doing that sickening thing where they shouted words of encouragement and support. Ugh.

“How unsightly! Enough with your whining, insect!” He roared up at that brat General was taunting him with. “If you were to be ruled, then you would have surrendered to _me_ atop your Neotopia tower!”

With the last of his external propulsion, he ascended to the top of the highest horn of war he could manage. There was little chance the human could hear him. But honestly, Sazabi didn’t care. 

“What does it matter if you are alone? Who did you have when you stood with your fleshy body and defied me? A Captain Gundam without his nerve? What’s the difference now? And where are the voices that sickeningly came to your aid? That you would never give up? That you would never surrender?”

Sazabi strained his voice processor. “Was that all just talk?!”

For all the awful things the SDG had done to the Magnamusai, the forward cannons still worked perfectly well. From his perch, he saw them shoot down the General’s remaining hand. It was a marvelous blast, the flames licking the wreckage even as it fell in mathematical arcs.

Too soon a call on ‘wreckage.’ The finger-mounted arrays were finished. But if that remote limb was deactivated, there was no way it could have been flying at him. What a claw to crush him and every one of his soldiers below.

There was no running from this. Sazabi, who had kept a scan of Nana’s drawing up in the corner of his optic, shut that interface. He looked up at the fist of his slaver and prepared to deflect it with his own body.

He didn’t need _anybody_. 

But at that moment, a feeling overtook him. Or a truth. Something that had filled him only once before.

He didn’t need anybody. But there were people who needed _him_.

That was the true point of _being_ a commander.

Sazabi took two fingers in his grasp, digging into the metal shell with indomitable fists, and _snapped_ them _off_. The hulk of Zeong’s godhand fell limp, crashed down into final ruins.

Then he bellowed up to Captain Gundam, who was maddeningly dragging his heels about this whole situation.

“What are you doing?” he shouted up at the Gundam. “Didn’t you fight me with no armor and only _one arm?!_ ”

He could not hear Captain’s reply. But that was not important.

“You have no excuse! If I can use _this_ wretched soul drive, then you can master your own!”

The shout back, in sorrow, was something to the effect of, ‘I can’t!’

“If you want to keep your ‘friend,’” Sazabi shot back, “you’ll have to try harder than _that!”_


	17. What Happened

And, like in almost every other timeline imaginable, he did.


	18. Zako Zako Hour!

Zako!

        Zako!

                 Zako!

**ZakoZako Hour!**

 

 **Z1** : Ladies and gentlebots! Today’s meeting is all about— all together now—

 **All:** The glorious return of our esteemed Commander Sazabi!

 **All, including the audience:** <crying>

 **Z2** : <rapturously> Oh, where have you been, Commander?

 **Z1** : We were lost without you!

 **Z3** : Actually, we were were lost because we zakos have a poor sense of direction.

<Z3 is shoved to the floor by his co-hosts. This is PROBABLY A WASTE OF SCREEN TIME.>

 **Z1** : You can’t just shun the Commander that way, zako! He’s important and so totally cool!

<Several CLIPS play in the background that are obviously RE-USED FOOTAGE from the PREVIOUS EPISODE. Commander Sazabi does indeed LOOK PRETTY COOL.>

 **Z2** : Yeah! Now that he’s returned, everything will get better!

<Z3 breaks free of his petulant co-hosts. This is DEFINITELY A WASTE OF MORE SCREEN TIME.>

 **Z3** : Oh yeah? Well, where was he during all the time we got pushed around like luggage, zako?

 **Z1** : Oh! Oh! I know this one!

<Z1 takes a dramatic pose to display YET MORE RECYCLED CLIPS from several PREVIOUS EPISODES>

 **Z1** : I have it on good intelligence, zako— and this may shock you— The Commander was a prisoner of war!

 **Z2** : Oh no! A prisoner! Poor Commander, to have fallen so far…

 **Z3** : <interrupting Z2, who is now moping on the ground> We’re all technically prisoners of war, zako.

<Z1 adjusts the CLIP SHOW. Now there's MORE OBVIOUSLY RE-USED FOOTAGE from EARLIER EPISODES.>

 **Z1** : No matter what they did to him, even sending him to Robo House… He didn’t break! After that, he was exposed to many horrible tortures, zako. Such as…

 **Z2** : Such as?!

 **Z3** : I can’t watch!

 **Z1** : Washing dishes!

<THE AUDIENCE gasps>

 **Z1** : Scrubbing floors!

 **Z2** : <cringing> This is too gruesome for me...

 **Z1** : And, tighten your screws for this one, zako… _weeding the garden!_

<[a frankly bloodcurdling issue ](http://i.imgur.com/dDhWi6Z.png)of FINE GARDENING is projected on the screen. THE AUDIENCE loses their minds.>

 **Z3** : <sobbing disgracefully> Okay! Okay! That’s too horrible for words! Who knew Neotopians could be so cruel?

 **Z1** : Also zako, he was made to undertake some ordeal known as ‘homework.’ But I don’t know what that is!

 **Z2** : Me neither, zako.

 **Z3** : Isn’t all of that work done inside a home?

 **Z2** : Well, maybe they aren’t telling us what it is. Sounds top-secret to me, zako.

 **Z1** : Whatever it is, the humans always inflict it on their new models! How cruel.

 **Z2** : Wait, I’ve heard of this! This is what the humans call, ‘being grounded.’

 **Z3** : If that ever happened to me, zako, just put _me_ in the ground!

 **Z2** : I for one think that the Commander is an inspiration. To face all of those terrible tortures, without budging even one bit!

 **Z1** : So brave…

All: <shed a single, EXTREMELY IMPROBABLE TEAR, staring mournfully up at a full moon. For diminutive robots, this may be TOUCHING.>

 **Z3** : Hey, wait a minute, Zako. Didn’t the Commander also torture a whole lot of _us_ before?

 **Z2** : Now that you mention it, he _has_ roasted us with his lasers, zako.

 **Z3** : And zapped us with his funnels.

 **Z1** : And fried us with his big cannons.

 **Z2** : Zako…

 **Z3** : Zako, zako.

 **Z1** : Maybe it’d best if the Commander hadn’t returned, zako...

<A FUNNEL floats in off left stage. The ZAKOS are too occupied with their SUDDEN CRISIS OF MORTALITY to notice.>

 **Z2** : I mean, we still have Lord Zapper Zaku, Lord Grappler Gouf, and Lord Destroyer Dom, zako.

<Another FUNNEL follows it. Z3 notices, but DECIDES TO ANXIOUSLY IGNORE IT.>

 **Z1** : And what about Lord Genkimaru?

<The FUNNELS start getting closer. Z3 is VISIBLY DISTRESSED.>

 **Z1** : but now all we have to look forward to…

 **Z3** : <seeing a third FUNNEL float in> Hey, zako—

 **Z2** : … is being totally obliterated, zako.

 **Z3** : <very panicked now, bouncing off the walls to escape> Would you look at that! Looks like all we’re out of time!

<THE METAL CURTAIN falls down on the stage. AN EXTREMELY INDIGNANT VOICE is heard off-screen.>

 **Commander Sazabi** : You wretched ingrates! I didn’t even fire on you yet!

<THE SHOW IS OVER. The camera is panning out to reveal COMMANDER SAZABI is pushing his way through THE TERRIFIED AUDIENCE.>

 **Z1** : Please! We’re sorry!

 **Z2** : We never should have doubted you, Commander!

 **Commander Sazabi** : Two seconds of annihilation is too good for you!

 **Z3** : … He seems different somehow.

 **Z2** : I don’t like it.

 **Commander Sazabi** : … so instead, I have decided to _ground_ you _all!_

 **Z1** : He’s worse!

 **Z2** : Don’t make our mistakes!

 **Z3** : Stay in school!

 **All** : For a future after the Dark Axis!

 **All, including the audience** : <miserably> Zako soldiers… do all your chores…!


	19. The Fate of Madnug

Only a few hours after his activation, the GP0 4 Madnug sat in the travel pod of an experimental space probe. In a few more hours, he was scheduled to be on the other side of the galaxy. In yet more, he was to return safe to Neotopia, via Lacroa and Dimensional Transport.

Not much else yet to him, he eagerly awaited the opportunity. Only minutes before the launch, he was told he would be thanked personally by a hero of the SDG, who would again later welcome him back. A chance to meet who he’d report to. No missions from invisible superiors.

Madnug stood at his station with excitement. The airlock light turned on. He turned around to receive his special visitor.

It was…

An enormous mech, larger than any he’d seen in his brief operation. Painted crimson, detailed in bright gold. Much more ornamented than himself. From the dictionaries he’d been booted with this was Commander Sazabi. Supreme leader of all Post-Axian elements on Neotopia, Admiral of Neotopia’s interdimensional fleet from the flagship Gundamusai.

In the look he was weathering, Madnug had a terrible feeling this mobile citizen already knew him.

“How the tables turn,” the Commander menaced.

“I will do my utmost to fulfill my mission, Commander,” Madnug said bravely.

“Forget it,” said Commander Sazabi. “This mission’s postponed.”

Madnug could not explain the relief he felt. “New orders, sir?”

“Get off this shuttle before I drag you out,” he said. “Then we’ll _discuss_ the bullet we all just dodged.”

Even though he didn’t understand what that meant, Madnug was glad to comply. When he sort of inched past that imposing frame in the hatch, he caught the Commander muttering to himself.

“What _incompetent_ life form scheduled this test during a known meteor risk? Typical that Neotopia has no experience in anything beyond its own doorstep.”

-o-END-o-

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Craters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8006419) by [LadyShockbox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyShockbox/pseuds/LadyShockbox)
  * [Zero-Sum Games](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8889181) by [BetterBeMeta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BetterBeMeta/pseuds/BetterBeMeta)




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